On Tue, 02 Mar 2004 20:14:27 GMT, wrote:

On Tue, 02 Mar 2004 18:07:23 GMT, Sunworshiper
wrote:

I'm going to do it anyhow. Does anyone know how I could find out how
many dual axis trackers are sold in the world? Why is it that you
don't think "people" want the complexity of them?

I doubt there's any way to figure out how many there are. We live in
an area with hundreds, perhaps thousands of off-gridders, and I talk
to every one I come across. I also follow several energy related
newsgroups. My take on trackers is that probably less than 10% of
installations use them. Some make a fair argument that they're not
worth the extra cost. The other thing is that PV has zero complexity,
while trackers add some potential for failure. Have you checked out
this site yet? http://www.redrok.com/main.htm

That's interesting, I think I can cure that problem. Yes, Dwayne is
cool and extremely ambitious also , I'd love to visit him. He's right
up there in Yooper country , if I ever get dragged up there I'll have
more to do than stick around other peoples' visits. He has a plane
also. My stuff is on the site. He's like a black hole for info. like
we think about tools.

I'm sure I'm bias ,
but if you don't track your not serious. Got any thoughts on not
liking one tracker to hold all your PV's? I've never talked to an
owner before. I have a feeling I'll make more from the robotic
mechanical spin offs.

We started off with 1200 Watts of PV, which was a bit too much for a
single installation of the trackers available at the time. Later we
added another 800 Watts on a third tracker. If I had it to do over,
there'd be a single array now that trackers that size are available.

Really? Who makes something that big and not cost a fortune? Maybe
I've been out of the loop too long...

I read a lot of your site , what did(do) you do for a living?

I started at various mechanic/fabricator type jobs. Motorcycle
mechanic for a time, eventually had a small manufacturing biz, finally
graduated to profiting from real estate inflation by selling our own
homes. I think that part might be over though now that we live here.
Unless the price of rocks and cactus takes off. :-)


I'm
right with ya except buying a broken bull dozer and fixing it , that
sounds very ambitious to me. I can just hear it. "Honey , I'm going to
buy a broken tank , I know how to fix it , its just a transmission
rebuild , no problem."

Here's what you should do - tell your wife that you're going to build
an aircraft in your garage. Copies of Sport Aviation and Trade-a-plane
would make good props. As she's packing her suitcase, tell her that
you'll settle for a dozer restoration instead. ;-)

LOL , is that how it's done? I've been really close to doing that and
never thought that. Its cause they want you to stay on the ground?

Also , how did you figure out how much power was needed to raise and
lower your tower?

I made a small model and performed complex calculations, most of which
I knew were probably wrong. Then I realized that I had a left-over
cube-shaped tank that would probably be close enough for the
counterweight if filled with concrete. Once I tried it, I only had to
move the cable attach point about 8 feet sigh from where it was
planned to be. I should shrink the counterweight quite a bit, but
since the tower has only ever been down a couple times, refining the
setup is way down on my list of priorities. The main winch was plenty
oversized, plus it was what HF had on sale for $300.

Wayne